Android apps are on the rise. They may hit 5-digit monthly gains in April. (Source: Android Lib)

The number of paid apps (purple) is also on the rise. (Source: Android Lib)

Google's app market is exploding with new apps

Android
is booming. It more
than doubled its market share last quarter, knocking off
Palm for the fourth place spot in the smartphone market. It
stands about one good quarter away from jumping Microsoft and seizing
third place, nipping at the heels of second place player
Apple.

Apple has long dismissed Android, stating that it
simply doesn't have enough apps to compete with the iPhone.
That's quickly
changing though. In July 2009 Google's Android Market was
only adding about 1,500 apps a month. That number has steadily
soared upwards and last month, it added 9,330 new apps.

Currently
there are over 42,000 apps in the Android Market. If the
current pace of growth acceleration continues, Google could match
Apple's current app count (around 150,000 apps) within a year or
less. Of course Apple is perpetually adding new apps as well,
but many fear that the Apple market has become a bit bloated.
It's harder for new developers to get noticed on the App Store that
on the Android Market, arguably.

Other factors work in
Google's favor as well. The inclusion of multi-touch and the
release of a native
SDK should help developers make top of the line ports or new
titles for the smart phones. And Google allows certain kinds of
apps that Apple doesn't currently, such as third-party
browsers.

One sign of health in the Android Market is the
rising number of paid apps. Another perpetual criticism of the
platform leveled by iPhone proponents is "all the apps are
free". That's hardly true any more; today 40.4 percent of
apps are paid (Google follows an identical 70-30 developer-publisher
revenue split as Apple).

Android's apps also appear to be
doing well overseas. There's a ton of new apps for the EU,
China, Russia, and others.

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He said it very clearly - it's for the children! You know, all those spoiled ass rich brats with iPhones and their $100/month contracts. Of course, free porn is impossible to find on the internet otherwise so by keeping it off the App store Apple is keeping the children safe and moving us toward their beautifully bland and antiseptic vision of an all white and silver future!

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates